Funny typographic posters in Brighton & Hove help us to look on the bright side of lockdown

If you happen to live in Brighton & Hove, you might have seen a tongue-in-cheek series of posters, plastered around the city centre, featuring amusing messages designed to give a little cheer during the coronavirus lockdown.

Called Viral Posters, they’re part of a project by Brighton design studio Filthy which began as an “an antidote to the grave language” of Government warnings and “anxiety-inducing” media reporting. From afar, you’d think they were official city council notices, but up close you read amusing messages like, ‘At least Liverpool won’t win the league’ and ‘At least you haven’t thought about Brexit’.

Filthy’s Founder and Creative Director Joe Pilbeam said: “While recognising the seriousness and importance of the lockdown, we wanted to post some hopeful humour back on our local streets. Mixing the stoic British attitude of looking on the bright side, with some hard sarcasm and a hint of satire, the series covers topics ranging from politics and climate change to home-working and living in Worthing.”

Embracing the current restrictions, the posters were printed at home and pasted up around Brighton & Hove city centre, giving new life to cancelled gig posters and boarded up shop-fronts. The Filthy Media team included the hashtag #stayhomebrighton to reinforce the Government’s message and track levels of engagement. Nice work, Filthy.